15:00 - 16:40
Session: S14
[Interaction and Emotions] + Design
p1281
Three Emotional Design Strategies to Deal with FOMO
Keywords:
Fear Of Missing Out; Social Media; Social Comparison; Negative Emotion; Emotional Design Strategy
Author(s):
Jangbae LEE

Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is a phenomenon that is often related to the use of social media. It has significant influences on negative affectivity, and lower levels of perceived quality of life (Elhai, Yang and Montag, 2021). Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research and individual User Experience (UX) professionals have proposed conceptual solutions to avoid FOMO, caused by under-fulfilled social needs (type one). Yet, there has not been a proposed experience-driven solution for other types of FOMO which have a social comparison as the antecedents (type two). It explicitly happens to a more image-centric social media platform such as Instagram. This paper introduces a new approach to deal with type two FOMO through emotional design, designing with the intention to evoke or to prevent a particular emotion (Desmet, Demir and Hekkert, 2009) and proposes related emotional design strategies. Firstly, the paper reviews the relationship between type two FOMO and negative emotion as one of its components. Secondly, it explores type two FOMO stages and other related negative emotions then offer a framework for identifying design opportunities for applying a new approach. It focuses on positively exploiting type two FOMO for the benefits it may potentially bring and aims to remove negative emotions. Lastly, it proposes three emotional design strategies to deal with type two FOMO by evaluating three design cases.